Conventional array antennas for the reception and transmission of electromagnetic signals are well known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 6,252,557 (“Plugge”), for example, describes one known photonics sensor and array for the reception and processing of RF signals. As depicted in FIG. 1, Plugge is generally seen to describe sensor 100 which includes a plurality of sensor elements 101, 102 and 103, where sensor elements 101 and 102 are positioned above and sensor element 103 is positioned below plurality of parallel arms 104 and 105 of a Mach-Zehnder modulator.
Electromagnetic wavefront 106 impinging on sensor element 101 effectuates the generation of a voltage across sensor elements 101 and 103, stimulating arm 104 which lies there between. Electromagnetic wavefront 106 impinging on sensor element 102 effectuates the generation of a voltage across sensor elements 102 and 103, stimulating arm 105 which lies there between. Voltage across arm 105 is in the opposite polarity to the voltage across arm 104. Output fiber 107 emanating from arms 104 and 105 recovers the modulated signal, and the signal is recovered and processed according to known methods.
Conventional photonics sensors, such as the photonics sensor described in Plugge, are only seen to be sensitive to incident electromagnetic fields with a component of the incident electric field orthogonal to the arms of an underlying Mach-Zehnder modulator structure. Accordingly, it is therefore considered highly desirable to overcome the deficiencies of conventional photonics sensors, to provide an enhanced photonics array which detects all polarizations of an incident electromagnetic field.